The Gomers...

The past little while has flown by...there's been dissertation revisions & shower tiling, organizing a playschool fundraiser & installing a wood ceiling, attending a Sr. Kindergarten family tea & organizing a fire truck birthday party for our little Jordy...then there's all the other stuff... like buying groceries so we can make something other than pasta or toast & PB and sorting, washing, drying, folding & putting away laundry, making snacks & changing bums, researching vaccines & wiping noodles off the floor, washing dishes & cleaning kitty litter, making play forts & finding mittens...and trying to not let the day go by without sitting down and really playing with the kids... easier said than done?

In this tiring busy-ness it seems as though the important stuff (like playing Diegos & kitties) gets put on the back burner. I end up saying, "in just a minute" more often than I'd like.

The best days are the ones when I've stopped and listened more often. The days that I've stopped what I was doing to "come see!!"

At the end of the day, it's those little moments that matter most... the times when I've stopped to listen to Jude tell me that he needs to put up his hood in bed so that his hair doesn't go out the open door and play outside on his bicycle :) or agreed with Jordy when he bounced in to inform me that "Bob builder can!" It's the times that I've stopped to truly admire one of Abby's drawings and talked to her about it.

Jordan will be 2 in less than a week. Jude is already 3 1/2 and will start school next fall. Abby is almost 6! We have been blessed with amazing little people. I just have to keep reminding myself that the stuff will get done, eventually. The moments on the other hand are fleeting... I need to stop for and savour the moments.

Because it's important...

...next year, my children will all attend the Remembrance Day ceremony.

The kids go to their sitter's home on Wednesdays so I can work on my dissertation. This morning, I should have kept them home to take them to the Remembrance Day service, only a short walk from our home. We've been talking about poppies and the people who fought (and fight) to keep us safe and free. Abby heard a soldier speak at school yesterday...

Yet, there's something about watching the elderly WWII vets march in, about hearing the last post and standing in the cold that books can't explain... as a Brownie, Girl Guide & Pathfinder, we walked behing the vets, soldiers, militia, etc. on Remebrance Day and stood quietly through the entire ceremony. In high school, our band played at the ceremony. It was important. It is important. WWII vets will soon all be gone. I want our kids to experience what I did as a child. To feel the great honour and respect...to remember.

My dad lost his older brother, Maurice Lysander Wright in WWII. I remember not only the losses of our country, but also what the loss of his older brother meant to my dad... I want our kids to know & to remember.

Beauty

Last week was a long week... a humbling, frustrating week.

I had to rely on God and not my own strength so much more last week.

Last week, God helped me be a good mother despite staying up late to work on dissertation revisions.

God helped my children to play together amazingly well for extended periods of time so I could stay focussed on more than a sentence at a time.

God helped me see beauty in my children's smiley eyes...

in their cuddles with their Daddy...

...in the beauty of a sunrise.... and so much more. Thanks, God.